Hitting The Nouss From The Block
Last weekend we made a trip to the Eidgenössisches Schwing- und Älperfest with the main intent of taking in some Hornussen. From the looks of it the sport is some sort of combination of golf and baseball without the base running.
In a nutshell a guy hits what looks like a black golf ball with a fishing pole with a block of wood on the end of it off a metal tee. The other team in the field has to hit the golfball out of the air with what look like shovels. They team in the field are allowed to even throw the shovels. If the golfball lands in the playing field without being knocked out of the air points are scored.
Attacking the Nousse With Flying Shovels
Each team has 18 players and when a team is at bat, each batter gets to hit two balls. The sport is played in four quarters with 1 team taking a turn to bat in each of the quarters. Each team essentially gets two chances at the tee.
There is a nice video explaining the Swiss Farmers Game (Hournuussen) on Youtube in english.
Games can be 3 hours in length. It is just as faced paced as American baseball. Meaning unless you are a real fan I could see getting bored after about 15-30 minutes.
Its worth checking out if you are near a match, but for the uninitiated it might not be the best way to spend an afternoon.